


Spirits, Names, and Why It’s Important to be Specific

by bunn, crownlessliestheking, Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collaboration, Eregion, Fix-It, Gen, Revenge, collab fic, do not annoy Fëanor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 09:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14614890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: When Sauron the Necromancer calls a spirit back into the body he is torturing, he expects a half-broken Curufinwë;  Celebrimbor, pushed even closer to the brink. Instead, he gets a very, very ticked off Curufinwë Fëanáro.Sauron feels like he should technically still have the upper hand in this situation, but in that moment, he has a very hard time believing it.A tumblr collabfic from an original idea by Drag0nst0rm.





	1. Sauron by crownlessliestheking

**Author's Note:**

> We don't know if Celebrimbor's fathername was Curufinwë. We guessed.

He knows something is wrong almost immediately.

The part of him that is still Annatar, distant as it may be, knows what Celebrimbor feels like- it knows warmth and a disgustingly soft kindness and the fear that had seeped in to destroy it all like acid, towards the end. He knows what Celebrimbor ought to feel like, after he had ceased to be Celebrimbor, a fëa crippled and broken and so /close/ to giving him what he wanted. The third Curufinwë and the least of the line, only held together by a fragile string at the core of him, and a will to lie, deceive, conceal. If he had simply given in, given what was wanted-

No.

Of course he would have been difficult, only just now coming into the legacy of his family after denying it the entirety of his life. Sauron, Gorthaur the Cruel- he has defeated those of the House of Finwë far greater than the son of a son of a son, diminished in strength and diluted in power. He still remembers Thangorodrim and watching the mighty Maedhros crumble when pressure and pain was applied to the right spot.

He is Sauron and he knows what a broken spirit ought to feel like, and he knows what the third Curufinwë ought to feel like bound to his will and whim and finally the Three in his grasp- and this is not it.

This is rage, burning hot enough to scorch the very air. This is only just fëa, there is no hröa to be found and yet through no art of his own, it is of half-formed shape, blurred outlines and dark eyes that blaze like the heart of the volcano he used to create the One. These are the eyes that blazed when they found out of his Master’s treachery, the ones that saw and crafted the Silmarils, eyes that hold the heat and power of the forges of Valinor themselves. Ships burn in that gaze, he can see it. Just as he can see the thousand losses they bore witness to, all at his hands with Melkor gone now to the void. A place he would not have considered safe, until now.

This is the first Curufinwë, mightiest of the Noldor, and Sauron thinks he has perhaps made a mistake.


	2. Fëanor, by Drag0nst0rm

This is not the first time he has had to watch as Sauron tormented one of his line. 

He can do no more for Celebrimbor than he could for Maedhros and that is far, far too little: He can bear witness and whisper words of comfort that slip into their dreams, but that is all. 

It isn’t enough.

Maedhros had screamed for him more than once. Celebrimbor, in his fevered state, calls for his own father, a father he cannot see pacing furiously around him, eyes dark with vengeful promise.

Fingon had rescued Maedhros, but Fingon was long departed from these lands now. All they had left were Celebrimbor and Maglor, and, from a certain point of view, Elrond.

None of them can stop this now, and Fëanor hates that, hates being helpless, being  _useless,_  hates that his legacy has led them to this.

There is no cry when Celebrimbor passes. He slips away quietly as if hoping to go unnoticed.

His fëa is shaking with remembered pain and the wounds inflicted on it. Curufin is there in an instant, wrapping his son tightly in a protective hold.

The horn of Mandos sounds. They all shudder at the sound, Celebrimbor most of all. 

“Go,” Curufin is telling him, “you’ve done nothing for them to punish you for, you’ll be safe there - “

But it is already almost too late. Sauron has discovered that his captive has slipped the net, and he is shouting words in his linguistic nightmare of a tongue as he attempts to drag Curufinwë back to life.

Threads like spider silk tear through the veil that separates them from the living and reach for Celebrimbor who stands too terrified to move.

Curufin snarls defiance and shoves his son behind him. The threads hesitate uncertainly as if they are not sure who to take. They won’t wait forever, though -

And in a flash of insight, the kind that comes more rarely to him now that he has been a spirit for so long, he knows exactly why the threads hesitate, and here, here at last is a chance to protect his family, to tell the abhorred  _exactly_  what he thinks of him -

He throws himself in front of the searching threads.  _I am Curufinwë,_ he snarls, and the words ring true in the music of the world. The threads wrap around him and drag him forward. He hears a choked cry of protest behind him, but this sacrifice is hardly a sacrifice at all. It is a chance for action at last, and his spirit burns with all the held back fire of ages.

_I am Curufinwë and I would have words with your master._


	3. Eru’s Children, by bunn

He is bound to flesh that has been tried too hard, too long. Flesh that was torn in two; heart and soul broken by betrayal, torn by lost hope and grief and then by knives and tongs. **  
**

He can feel blood running down legs that are nearly his own, but not quite.  The agony of ruined hands, fingernails torn and shredded, and the world fills for a moment with the drumming red pain of shattered teeth.  Heart pounding in his chest: not his, but it would serve.

Concentrate.

_Concentrate._

Golden eyes before him, wide with alarm, a tall figure that moves like silk and smells like death and burning, stepping back, turning, calling up on all the power of the mightiest of the Enemy’s servants.  

Chains upon Fëanor’s wrists and ankles, cold iron tight around his neck. Iron from the mountains, iron from the forge. Iron that he had mastered long ago, when Aulë had been his friend and his teacher, not yet his enemy.

“Break!” Fëanor cries, in a voice so nearly his own, and the chains chimed sharp in answer, a clear bright note that begins as a bell and ends as a trumpet call holding both ending and renewal.

But this is Sauron’s own metal, wrought with runes of cruelty and binding.

“Break!” Fëanor calls again, his voice stronger now, clear and bright as the light of Laurelin, as Sauron begins to draw his sword.

The ringing sound of metal struck with a great hammer shines through the metal, rings through the great Hall of the Jewelsmiths, and echoes strong and clear through ruined Ost-in-Edhil, shaking the very stone.

The chains strain, twist, and then, as Finrod’s chains had long ago, they break.

Fëanor steps forward, feet bloody. Sauron recoils, but only for a moment.

“Curufinwe Fëanáro,” Sauron smiles wolfishly, his voice as strong as a river of molten metal.  “I cast my net to catch a minnow, but I have caught the salmon of knowledge himself.  And now I shall devour you.”  He has a fair face, but far too many teeth, and Fëanor’s are broken. Sauron’s strong hand holds a sword, and Fëanor’s hands are torn and weaponless.   

There is no hope in swords, there is no power in this broken shuddering body that could defeat a voice that sang Arda into life.

Only a hope that lies in what Fëanor is, in the reason why Sauron first bound himself into this dark and cruel world, in the thoughts and ideas, the inspiration and the grief that comes flooding out of Celebrimbor’s nimble brain.

Fëanor, standing bloody in his grandson’s body amid the rubble, laughs.  “You wish to learn the knowledge of Eru’s Children?” he said. “Attend then!  For I shall teach thee, Abhorred, all that I have learned!”

And Fëanor throws his mind and burning spirit open.

Sauron’s golden eyes go wide and he leans forward, staring at the flames within; a spirit made of endless golden complexity, and layered through it like an endless shimmering pattern, alloys of grief and pain, vulnerability, fear, horror and love all interleaved, minute and perfect beyond anything any of the Ainur know.

Leans forward, further, further, and then is falling, falling into the bright world that is Fëanor’s spirit, bound within it, fascinated… and… trapped.

Two bodies lie unmoving in the ruins of the Hall of the Jewelsmiths, as the orc-armies wavering without the deadly spirit that drove them on, fall back, and back again before the dwarf-army driving determined out from Khazâd Dum, before Celeborn and his Elves marching West out of the holly-woods of the mountain-slopes, before Elrond riding wildly south and east with all the forces that Lindon could spare behind him.  

As the orc-armies break, and flee, their master lies silent, unspeaking, beside Celebrimbor’s body.


End file.
